UK PM and medical, science chiefs give virus update

Britain's chief medical officer said Tuesday that 1% of people who contract the new coronavirus might die, based on the Chinese experience. Speaking at a news conference alongside British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Britain's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, Professor Chris Whitty added that the risk was higher in older and more vulnerable people.

He said that predicting a percentage of how many would be infected was "largely speculative" because of the proportion of people who have no symptoms of the disease and who have not been counted in the overall numbers, and what proportion of the population can get infected.

"It will not go above 80% so for planning purposes of course we go up to the highest rate that we reasonably could," he said, stressing that the  percentage would likely be much lower than that.

Johnson said that the army was ready to backfill the police "under the reasonable worst case scenario."

The new virus first detected in China has infected more than 89,000 people globally and caused over 3,000 deaths. The World Health Organization has named the illness COVID-19, referring to its origin late last year and the coronavirus that causes it.

Britain currently has reported 40 cases of COVID-19 and 1 death.